Aram, Eugene

Aram, Eugene (ā'rum) [key], 1704–59, English philologist, b. Yorkshire. A self-taught linguist, Aram was the first to identify the Celtic languages as related to the other languages of Europe. In 1758, while at work on an Anglo-Celtic lexicon, he was arrested and later hanged for the murder—14 years earlier—of his friend Daniel Clark. The story of his crime inspired Thomas Hood's poem The Dream of Eugene Aram, and Bulwer-Lytton's novel Eugene Aram.

The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2007, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.

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